US Robot Wars
From Combat Robot
The first Robot Wars event took place on August 20th, 1994 at the Fort Mason Center, Herbst Pavillion in San Francisco. It is considered to be the first true robot combat tournament in the modern idiom. Mark Thorpe was the organizer of the event, in partnership with Sm:)e Records (later called Profile Records).
The 1994 Robot Wars in San Francisco, California featured three different 'games' for each of three robot weight classes:
- The FACE-OFF paired robots to battle through an elimination tournament. A robot won a match by immobilizing its opponent, either by damage or by pinning. If both robots were still mobile at the end of ten minutes, they both advanced to the next round of the tournament.
- The MOB SCENE was a free-for-all melee fight amongst multiple robots. There were two Mob Scene fights: one for lightweight robots, and a never-repeated 'all weight classes' melee.
- The ESCORT event had a single competitor robot escort a defenseless "drone" robot across the arena while a "house robot" attempted to attack the drone. The successful escort with the lowest time was declared the winner. The Escort event was contested only in 1994.
Weight classes for this first event were:
- Lightweight: 10 to 40 pounds
- Middleweight: 41 to 70 pounds
- Heavyweight: 71 to 100 pounds
The arena was a 30 by 54 foot rectangle with an asphalt surface. The 1994 arena was defined only by 2-foot high plywood walls -- there was no bulletproof plastic enclosure The following year saw the addition of braced 1/4" thick clear plastic panels extending four feet upward from the plywood panels to enhance audience protection. By 1997 the arena walls had grown to eight feet plus two feet of vertical netting at the top.
Early arena hazards included a wide ram that could push a robot away from the side railing, nets on hinged arms that could decend to entangle robots that ventured too close, large horizontal pivoting arms to swat passing robots, and a bowling ball pendulum swinging across the arena.
The competition format remained much the same through 1997. Additional safety regulations were implemented each year, match length was trimmed to 5 minutes, a 2 to 10 pound 'featherweight' weight class was added, and weight allowances crept upward; by 1997 the heavyweight maximum was 170 pounds.
The 1997 judging criteria removed pinning an opponent for 30 seconds as an automatic win and required such immobilization techniques to be limited to one minute. The 1997 judging criteria also removed 'audience applause' for selection of a winner when a match ended with both robots still mobile. Robots were judged by a panel based on a scoring system of damage, aggression, and control.
The San Francisco events continued thru 1997, when the partnership between Thorp and Profile records broke apart. Profile moved Robot Wars to England where it became a popular television program that ran for seven seasons, ending in 2003.
See also: UK Robot Wars
